MacArthur Foundation's Chicago International connections fund

In 2014, Clinard Dance received a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s prestigious Chicago International Connections Fund. This newly-funded project involved working with artist Hrisihkesh Pawar of Pune, India, Founder and Artistic Director of the Hrishikesh Dance Company at the Centre of Contemporary Dance. Pawar set a choreography on the Clinard Dance company fall 2014. In early 2015, Wendy Clinard traveled to Pune to reciprocate.

The work of both Hrishikesh Dance Company and Clinard Dance are rooted in their perspective world traditions, but both utilize the expressions and movement from those traditional forms to explore contemporary subject matter and issues. Rather than mimicking one another they sought to create something new by better understanding each other culturally and individually as well as better understanding each director’s approach to their craft and dance making.

Clinard dance collaborates with Chicago Sinfonietta for their 2015/16 Season

Chicago Sinfonietta’s season-opening concerts October 3rd and 5th will include Rimsky-Korsakov's “Scheherazade” and the percussive rhythms of dancing feet — courtesy of Clinard Dance and tap virtuoso Cartier Williams — overlaid on symphonic works by Stravinsky, Borodin and Roberto Sierra.

Missed our October performances? Check us out again on June 16th at Ravinia Festival.

"One of the works, Roberto Sierra’s “Fandangos,” was the most obvious candidate for added-on dance, since its steady underlying Spanish rhythms and swirls of pungent color found their natural complement in the poetic flamenco dancing of Wendy Clinard, of the Chicago-based Clinard Dance .

Clinard was joined by fellow flamenco artist Marisela Tapia and the tap dance virtuoso Cartier Williams for a nimbly choreographed excerpt from Borodin’s “Polovtsian Dances” (from “Prince Igor”). You would have thought their disparate dance styles would clash, but they were remarkably well-integrated, beautifully done — and they meshed surprisingly well with the orchestra’s blunt vigor." CHICAGO TRIBUNE REVIEW JOHN VONRHEIN

CLINARD DANCE Travels to Beijing

If you look at your right palm, you see a map of China: the rivers flow east, and most of the rest is high and dry; the arable land is like dirt collected in the lines of your palm. It is home to 1,380,868,414 of the world's population. A handful of them work at The University of Chicago Center in Beijing and Peking University. They invited Clinard Dance and EStrella Piano Duo to perform our piece, Chicago's Watershed: A 156-Mile Choreography and work with music and dance students to create a piece together in April 2016.